Re: [icann-europe] Recommended Reading: Brad Templeton on ICANN and the DNS

[Brad Templeton <brad@templetons.com>]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 02:45:15PM -0700, Jeff Williams wrote:
>   Well from what I can see New.net's TLD's are not generic for the
> most part.  Yes they do have a few that are.  But the majority are not.
> However TLD's are not trademarkable as aren't generic terms.

I think we're using a different definition of the word.  ALL the new.net
TLDs listed on their home page are generic.    That means the term has
an inherent meaning related to its function.   They have a TLD of churches
and it is called ".church" -- that's generic to the extreme.

If I wish to create a directory of churches, and I call it "The church
directory" that is generic.  I can't get ownership rights in that name,
nor should I be able to.  Anybody is allowed to call their directory of
churches a church directory.

If I create a directory of churches called "Brad's Church Directory" that
is a brand name, and I can get ownership rights in it.  Nobody else can
call theirs that.   This, by the way, is true even of other people named
Brad.  Trademark law has established this rule because the word "brad" has
no inherent meaning when it comes to church dirctories, and it's first-come
first-served when that's the case.

New.net's home page says the exactly wrong thing: "Now you can get names
that are truly descriptive of your business, site or offering."

That's exactly the opposite of what trademark law teaches us.  You can't
get ownership (trademark) of a name that is descriptive.   Yet new.net
is advertising that it will sell you such ownership.

ICANN is taking the same course with TLDs like .museum etc.  It's saying,
when it comes to internet names - the names that count these days -- you
can get complete ownership of something like "history.museum" if you're
the first to register it.   And since .com is well established as meaning
commercial, we've all see the crazy thing that happen when somebody gets
ownership of something like drugstore.com, when in fact nobody should have
that.  The word "drugstore" should never have been for sale.

Trademark law was wise, and has a lot of history to it.  It's not perfect,
but it's much better tested than anything out there.

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